The latest in IR - summer book round up

Welcome to our inaugural quarterly book round up. Each quarter we'll be bringing you updates on the latest International Studies releases by BISA members.

The War Lawyers

The United States, Israel, and Juridical Warfare

Craig Jones

This book is about the involvement of legal professionals in the conduct of war. It is the only book-length study that examines the role of war lawyers in aerial targeting operations, focusing on both U.S. and Israeli targeting practices and their legal protocols. It demonstrates how war lawyers can produce and extend military violence, as well as constrain it. The book draws on exclusive interviews with senior war lawyers and military operators from the Israeli Air Force (IAF) and the United States Air Force (USAF), as well as previously unanalysed military doctrine and briefing papers, and recently declassified materials.

Blurb

"Over the last 20 years the world's most advanced militaries have invited a small number of military legal professionals into the heart of their targeting operations, spaces which had previously been exclusively for generals and commanders. These professionals, trained and hired to give legal advice on an array of military operations, have become known as war lawyers.

The War Lawyers examines the laws of war interpreted and applied by military lawyers to aerial targeting operations carried out by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Israel military in Gaza. Drawing on interviews with military lawyers and others, this book explains why some lawyers became integrated in the chain of command whereby military targets are identified and attacked, whether by manned aircraft, drones and/or ground forces, and with what results. 

This book shows just how important law and war lawyers have become in the conduct of contemporary warfare, and how it is understood. Jones argues that circulations of law and policy between the U.S. and Israel have expanded the scope of what constitutes a legitimate military target, contending that the involvement of war lawyers in targeting operations not only constrains military violence, but also enables, legitimises, and sometimes even extends it."

BISA members can get a 30% discount on the book if they purchase directly from OUP using the code: ALAUTHC4

Nationalism and After

With a new Introduction from Michael Cox

E H Carr

This recognised classic in IR has been reissued with a new Introduction by Michael Cox. The book provides essential background to Carr and the historical events which shaped the book’s argument and reception. Michael Cox's introduction makes this important work accessible to a new generation of students.

BISA member Nicholas Kitchen (University of Surrey) said: "This reissue of Nationalism and After will resonate with those attempting to understand the causes and consequences of the retreat to national borders and protectionism taking place across the globe."

Blurb

Published in 1945, Nationalism and After was a best-selling classic in its own time which sparked intense debate when it first appeared and has continued to do so ever since. Authored in a moment of hope, E.H. Carr’s uncompromising critique of nationalism and plea for a more rational international order remains as relevant today as it did when it was first written. As the world is once again confronted by a rising tide of nationalism, Nationalism and After remains a beacon of hope in an era where reasoned critical analysis has never been more urgently required. It is here reissued in full with a new, definitive introduction by leading Carr scholar, Michael Cox.

Purchase the book on the Palgrave website.

Civil-Military Relations and Global Security Governance

Strategy, Hybrid Orders and the Case of Pakistan

Cornelia Baciu

Cornelia's book has a foreward by Professor Risa Brooks. Reviewer Peter D Feaver (Duke University) said "Baciu takes her place among a new generation of specialists who are refining the concepts and expanding the empirical domain that undergird our understanding of what makes for effective civilian control."

Blurb

This book investigates the relationship between international security governance, democratic civil-military relations and the relevance of strategy, as well as of absolute and relative gains, in norms formation in hybrid orders.

Highlighting caveats of the legacy of Huntington’s paradigm of military professionalism, the book applies a robust methodology and data collected in four sample regions in Pakistan. It gauges the effects of international and local actors’ support in the Security Sector Reform domain and examines instances of civil-military interactions and military transition. The book also analyses determinants and strategies that can influence them to demonstrate the impact of global governance in norms diffusion, as well as of absolute and relative utility gains and incentives in normative change. The author generates a new theory pertaining to international organisations and actors as determinants of transformation processes and consequently sheds new light on the issue of global security governance, especially its impact on civil-military relations and democratisation in hybrid orders.

The book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners in the field of global governance, civil-military relations, grand strategy and foreign policy as well as Asian politics, South Asian studies, peace, security and strategic studies, International Relations and political science in more general.

You can purchase the book on the Routledge website.

If you're a BISA member and you'd like your book included in next quarter's round up, email Communications Manager, Chrissie Duxson: Chrissie.Duxson@bisa.ac.uk. Please include the title, blurb and a link to where the book can be purchased. If you are able, you can also include details of any discount available, but of course this is not required. The book should have been published a maximum of six months prior to your email.

Top photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash